FROM THE ARCHIVES:At the beginning of December 1914, the British authorities in Ireland banned a number of publications including the Irish Worker, edited by James Larkin, and the Irish Volunteer, edited by Eoin MacNeill, because of their campaigns against Irishmen enlisting in the British army. James Connolly, backed by armed men, was the main speaker at a protest meeting outside Liberty Hall against the banning, as described in this report. - JOE JOYCE
At 2.30 p.m. there were approximately 500 present, and a fair proportion were in the uniform of the Irish Volunteers. About one o’clock it was observed that a number of members of the “Citizen Army” carrying rifles entered Liberty Hall. Some anti-recruiting leaflets were distributed amongst the crowd, and, although there were a large number of police present, in charge of Inspectors Purcell and Quinn, no efforts were made to arrest any of the leaflet distributors or to interfere in any way with the meeting. Shortly after 1.30 p.m. Mr. James Connolly and some others came from Liberty Hall towards the railway arch. A chair for the speakers to stand on having been procured, the meeting started. Several of the speeches were punctuated with cheers for Germany.
Mr. Connolly, who was the first speaker, declared that, although the papers had been suppressed, the promoters of these papers had not been, and would not be, coerced. They would continue to advocate the views expressed in those papers, and to use their utmost endeavours to prevent young Irishmen from enlisting in the British Army, so that the young men of England might be freed to continue English industries and capture German trade. He defied the Government to put them on trial for [their] views before a judge and jury of their own countrymen, where they would have an opportunity of justifying themselves. But the Government would not do so. They had martial law in Dublin now, and so they would be tried by some military bullies.
They had no quarrel with Germany or the German nation; the only people they had a quarrel with was the British Government, and no threat of arrest or of martial law would prevent them making that known as publicly as they could.
Madame Markievicz said that, though only a woman, she was prepared to fight with the men with her back to the last wall fighting for Ireland. They had no quarrel with Germany, and any Irishman who joined the British Army was a traitor to his country. (Applause.) Mr. Connolly, at the close of the meeting, drew attention to the fact that the meeting had been held under the protection of an armed company of the Citizen Army, stationed in the windows and on the roof of Liberty Hall. Had the police or military attempted to break up that meeting or disperse those assembled, as had been done on previous occasions, those rifles would not have been silent. (Applause.)
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